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LG Electronics (LG) has released its 2025–2026 Sustainability Report, laying out how LG is working toward its long-term goal of a more sustainable, inclusive future – a goal that increasingly overlaps with fast-growing markets like the UAE, where investment in AI infrastructure, sustainable buildings and inclusive smart living is accelerating.
Cooling is one of the biggest energy costs of running AI infrastructure and data centres, and it’s an area where LG says it has made real progress. The company’s energy-efficient cooling and appliance technology helped it cut carbon emissions per unit across its products by 22.5 per cent over the past five years, a reduction independently validated by the Science Based Targets initiative, a body that assesses whether corporate climate goals hold up to scrutiny. LG was the first South Korean home appliance maker to receive that kind of validation.
That same push for efficiency shows up in the company’s own operations, too — relevant as the UAE works toward its Net Zero 2050 target and pushes ahead with a growing pipeline of sustainable building and infrastructure projects. LG’s direct and energy-related emissions across all its sites came in at 842,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent last year, below the 878,000-tonne target it had set for 2030, as part of a broader plan to cut emissions by more than half by the end of the decade.
On waste, LG recycled 97
3 per cent of what it produced across its sites in 2025, beating its own 2030 target of 95 per cent, and all five of its factories in South Korea earned the top rating under a zero-waste-to-landfill certification program. The company also recovered 640,000 tonnes of used electronics last year, bringing its total e-waste recovered since 2006 to more than 5.65 million tonnes.
As AI adoption grows, so does scrutiny of how it’s built and used. LG’s new report includes, for the first time, a dedicated section on what it calls Responsible AI; a set of principles and internal oversight meant to keep the company’s AI development accountable and transparent. It’s a question regulators and companies across the Gulf region are also working through as they set their own rules for AI.
The report also highlights LG’s growing focus on products built for people often overlooked by mainstream tech: the LG Comfort Kit, which makes home appliances easier to use for people with disabilities; service kiosks with sign-language avatars and braille guides; and the LG Easy TV, designed for older users. The company also offers sign-language and dedicated consultation services for hearing-impaired and senior customers, the kind of inclusive design increasingly expected as smart homes and smart cities take hold across the region.
LG has also changed how it’s governed, separating the roles of CEO and board chairperson and appointing an independent director to lead the board. These are all moves aimed at improving oversight and transparency.
The company’s broader sustainability record has also earned recognition from independent raters: LG has ranked in the top 1 percent of S&P Global’s sustainability assessment for three years running, sits on the Dow Jones Best-in-Class World Index for the 14th consecutive year, and holds top-tier ratings from MSCI and EcoVadis, two other widely used sustainability scorecards
LG has published an annual sustainability report every year since 2006. The full 2025-2026 report is available on LG’s website.